


What Would You Fall For?

by thelilacfield



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, M/M, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-07
Updated: 2016-01-15
Packaged: 2018-05-12 11:56:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5665249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thelilacfield/pseuds/thelilacfield
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Offered a choice three years ago, Finn chose the way of a terrified child - he ran away to the Outer Rim, changed his name and created a new life on Tatooine. While he makes drinks and cleans floors in the cantina, the war rages on, claiming many as the First Order tighten their grip on the galaxy. Thrown unexpectedly back into the fight and taken in by the Resistance, he finds himself floundering among people who have grown close without him, and confused by his feelings for someone he believed to be dead.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Something To Fight For

Title inspired by  _Aaron Burr, Sir_ from the musical Hamilton. First fic for this fandom, so I'm hoping this will be received with interest! After seeing the film again I started to think about what might have happened if Finn had chosen to leave instead of fight, and this is what was born of that thought :)

 

* * *

Despite the early hour, the air is already thick and cloying, the very heat heavy as stone, and he wipes the back of a hand carelessly across his forehead, glaring at the twin suns already climbing into the sky. "Don't know why you chose here, of all places," Shee says grimly, hair already collapsing in sweat-damp tangles, looking up at him through eyes half-closed against the swirling sand. "Of all the planets in the Outer Rim, all the places where it's possible to disappear into the bustle, why Tatooine?"

Glancing out across the port, filled with pilots on stops, the dirty side of society lurking on every corner, for a second he can almost see the familiar face among it all, gently smiling, waiting for him. But then he turns away, and there's nothing there but empty space. A vacuum, where those few days of happiness linger, a shadow of sadness in what should have been a fresh start. "Reminds me of someone," he finally answers, and she smiles at him. "Come on, once we get these unloaded we can head home."

Together, with much grunting and panting and spitting of Huttese curses under their breath, they succeed in emptying the freighter of boxes, storing them all in the freezer and leaving it for the day staff. Brushing her hair out of her eyes, Shee curls her fingers into the hem of her shirt and glances up at him, throat working before she finally says, "Shall we go get some breakfast? It's just...Cam, I know you live a long way from the port. Let me treat you, just this once."

If only it could be a matter of her wanting to treat him, to be a good friend. It's flattering that she's noticed how far he'll have to go to get back to that tiny hut, spending his meagre earnings on bland food that sends his mind spinning back to cold, clinical corridors and gritted orders and constant, cold, clenching _fear_. It's, honestly, a little shocking that she's _interested_ in him, that her eyes are glinting with the ghost of hope. But he came to this planet, in that cramped ship with the pilots arguing in languages he couldn't understand, in order to disappear. Not for love, or money, or fame. For that most precious gift in the war they're living in - anonymity. "Sorry, Shee, I'm exhausted," he says gently, gut clenching as her face falls, just a little. "Some other time, I promise. On your birthday, we'll go out and eat until we fall asleep at the table."

"Okay," she says, but her eyes are sad and she won't meet his eyes. "Well, thanks for making the night shift not mind-numbingly boring. Have a good day." And she walks away, pulling her hood over her face to protect her skin from sharp sand and blasting heat, and he can only turn away and head towards his speeder. After all the journeys he's taken on it, the paint is chipped, peeling, faded, but it's still obviously red. As he climbs aboard, he can't help a smile, remembering the girl who fought her own battles and could fly as easily as walking, a natural at those complicated controls. Donning his goggles and twisting the accelerator, he crouches low over the controls and feels the hum of the engine as the craft moves swiftly over the sand, away from the port and into the wastelands.

When he first arrived on Tatooine, he was given everything he would need to create a new life here, under a new name - an allowance for a house and a place to find a job. While at first he rebelled against the idea of working in the cantina, it soon became brilliantly obvious that no one pays attention to the evening bartenders. No one thinks about how they have to clean up after all the patrons are gone. No one realises that they don't leave the bar until morning, sleeping through the heat and rising with the moon. He's just a faceless entity, providing drinks and small talk. They wouldn't be able to pick his face out of a line-up.

As he reaches his home, the heat is oppressive, and he stumbles gratefully into the cool darkness, taking a long drink of water and carefully climbing into the hammock. All those moons ago, when he first arrived here, the silence scared him - after years growing up with the First Order, years surrounded by other people and hearing the screams of the fighters rushing around, then those few dizzily exhilarating days travelling with Rey, he was used to noise. Couldn't sleep without it. But now, it welcomes him in like an old friend, the darkness wrapping around him like the arms of a lover he's never had, the quiet singing him to sleep.

Life on Tatooine is simple - not easy, of course. Not in the stifling heat, surrounded for miles on every side by arid desert, with rarely a breath of cool wind. Here, he's not a traitor, or an accidental hero, or a soldier. He can pretend he wasn't snatched from blue skies and pearly clouds and warm arms, trained to march and kill and obey, and finally leaving that behind on a whim. He's just a man. A worker. A place like this, with its few ports, has its benefits. Life is so treacherous, on a planet plagued with sandstorms and brimming with unsavoury types, that everyone takes care of only themselves. Compassion is a quality rarely seen in the Outer Rim - it's remarkably easy to simply disappear. Fade like a shadow and become just another lowered head in a crowd.

But the nightmares still haunt him. He can still see the bodies, in their armour that did nothing against blaster fire, hear the screams of the villages he was ordered to murder in cold blood, the roar of the fighters bearing down on them. On the worst nights, the nights when the guilt is hot and gnawing, he dreams about those people he met in the war that visitors to the cantina whisper is still raging. He dreams about them dying, fading into the legends of war heroes who gave their lives to the cause. More than once, he's found himself waking abruptly on the floor after thrashing out of his hammock, breaking out in a cold sweat, heart pounding and breath coming in short, sharp gasps.

Three years have blown past like sand rolling across the wastelands, he thinks to himself, staring at the ceiling of the hut and breathing in the quiet. Does he regret leaving that day? He looked back as the craft rose into the sky, but the ground was green and the air rich and he was certain that Han and Rey would get BB-8 to the Resistance. Curled in between bags and cargo, he composed some unlikely fantasy to stave off the guilt, one in which Rey became a co-pilot with Han, and the Resistance were able to destroy the First Order and win the war, and the galaxy was once again restored to peace and harmony. After all, what importance could a former Stormtrooper have in the war effort?

All too soon, seemingly before he has even slipped away to dreams, he's awake again, struggling groggily through changing into uniform and doing everything he can to look a little more alert, pinning on a smile and spurring his speeder on, ever a little faster, back to the port and to the night shift. The cantina hums with life - they come out at night here, when the heat has calmed and the work is over. He waves to his regulars - the group of moisture farmers who raise their glasses in reply, pod racers talking loudly of their latest accidents and exploits, workers from the port who funnel the spacecraft in and out. One young woman, eyes bright with drink and gestures a little too wild, knocks a glass over, and he graciously clears it away before anyone can notice, brushing off her frantic apologies and gently keeping her fingers away from the sharp edges. She flirts a little, brushing her fingers against his wrist for a second too long as she pushes a tip into his hand, and he just smiles and talks to her until a friend gets her attention and she turns away.

"Always the charmer," Shee says as he ducks behind the counter, standing there wiping down glasses and looking at him with an expression he wishes he could read. "Now come on, hotshot, take over the cleaning for a while and let me take last food orders."

"Yes ma'am," he replies, and her smile lets him know that she's not angry with him. Not to the point of denying all existence of their friendship, carefully cultivated and nurtured over the years, since the first day he walked into the cantina, unsure and unsteady, and she swooped on him like some merciful angel, taking him under her wing and helping him become the experienced cantina worker he is today. In some ways, she reminds him of Rey, his first true friend - she's fearless and strong and independent, surviving on such a harsh planet. But, in essence, she's different - softer and sweeter, not so hard and sharp at the edges. She hasn't fought the way Rey did - nor the way he has. Not that she'll ever know that.

The sky is dark, the lighting low and the patrons approaching the bar are increasingly unsteady, squaring their elbows on the nearest flat surface to stay upright and ordering in that sharp, overly loud tone that shows the level of their inebriation. In the corner, the band are playing smooth, slow music that could easily soothe a tired night-shift worker to sleep, and he's fighting not to let his eyelids droop, to remain charming for each and every customer attempting to tell him their life story with unfocused eyes and dramatic hand gestures.

"You know the Empire, right, the Empire?" someone says to him, and he nods and smiles and swallows a laugh as he prepares another drink. "So when the Rebellion wiped them out completely it was amazing and they were _heroes_! I've always admired Leia Organa, because she was just such a good general and leader and everything, and her brother was a war hero and the first of a new generation of Jedi, and she married another war hero who was the best pilot in the galaxy!" And their face falls and they whisper, "But everyone says they're just stories. Just legends people tell us. Kind of anti-First Order propaganda, if you know what I mean. Trying to tell us we can fight."

"Let me tell you a secret," he says, and they lean in close, eyes wide. "Those legends - they're not just stories. The Force isn't just some religion from the old days. It's real, and those people are real. Just because the First Order doesn't want us to think an evil dictator and a corrupt regime can't be stopped doesn't mean it's true."

They stare at him for a long moment, and then grin and reach across the bar to tap his nose. "I like you," they say, and pick up their drink, pay and weave away across the cantina, swaying gently in time to the music. Smiling after them, he turns to the box of glasses retrieved from various corners of the room and starts to wipe them clean, when the relative peace of late night is shattered by the distinct sound of people shouting just outside the door.

"I hate drunks sometimes," Shee says, rolling her eyes expressively and wiping her hands on her apron. A moment later, security opens the door and she waves cheerfully, and he has to hide a smile. "Do you think this happens to people working the day shift? Do you think people get this drunk?"

"When it comes to day shifts, a lot of the customers are pilots who are on crazy times from all the travelling," he points out fairly. "I'm sure it's just as bad." And then the whole bar starts, and scared quiet reigns when the familiar sound of blaster fire filters through the entrance. Meeting Shee's eyes, heart in his mouth when he sees the sudden raw fear there, he gulps and says, "I have a bad feeling about this."

"It's just someone getting belligerent when they're asked to leave, Cam, it happens all the time," Shee says, but her eyes and the tight grip of her fingers around a glass betray her fear. "I'll just go glance outside and see what's going on."

She walks away, and he's trapped behind the bar, heart pounding and breath becoming ragged. The bar is silent - even the band are quiet, instruments in their hands, waiting. Just the reactions tell him this isn't a regular occurrence, even with Shee trying to act natural about it. As he looks down at the glass in his hand, seeing his own scared face reflected back in the newly-cleaned surface, he hears a familiar noise overhead. It's faint, but it chills him to the bone - a mechanical scream that he heard every day of his life before deciding to leave all of that behind. The kind of sound that he hoped to run from forever. The sound of an evil he can't escape, even in the Outer Rim.

Blaster fire. Again. And he only looks up in time to see Shee falling back into the cantina, and it takes a moment for him to realise the screaming is him, and he vaults over the bar and runs to her side. It's too late, the wound in her chest is still curling with smoke and her eyelids are fluttering as her life fades, but he still takes her hand and looks down at her. He doesn't cry. His heart breaks, but his face is set in stone. That's was he was taught. "Does it hurt?" he asks her, and she meets his eyes, gaze unfocused and corners of her mouth twitching with a smile.

"Too quick," she says softly, and squeezes his fingers in hers. "Don't go outside. They...it's the First Order. They killed the security. They'll kill _everyone_." Just for a moment, there's pain creasing her almost serene face, agony in her eyes. "Why are they _here_?"

"I'm so sorry," he says, and she'll never know how much he's apologising for. It's not just because she's dying, when she's young and bright and free and could've lived to do so much, be so much more than the night-shift cantina worker she's dying as. It's because it was him. He left the Order, and then he left the fight against them. He let his fear rule him, and the war is still raging and now they're in the Outer Rim and more and more people are going to be added to that body count, it'll just keep going up until the Order has wiped out every last trace of resistance in the galaxy.

Her gaze is still fixed on his as her eyes slip closed, and the sigh that leaves her has tears springing hotly to his eyes, stinging as he fights them back. He's not a soldier, not any more, but a simple glance around the room shows him how terrified they are. They don't know this - this is not their war. He has to protect them. With a thought for the heroes he spent those scant few days beside, he adjusts his jacket and stands, looking around the room of ashen faces. "How many of you have weapons?" he asks, but they simply stare. "I'm serious. There are Stormtroopers out there, and their orders will be to kill. They won't show any mercy. If you have a weapon, you damn well better know how to use it. So who has one?"

A few raise their hands, others reaching into holsters for blasters and some producing knives. He thinks, briefly, that it's hopeless, but one look at Shee's still body hardens his resolve, and he turns to the crowd. "Those who really know how to use those blasters, come outside with me. Those who aren't ready for the fight, I want you to go into the storeroom. Those with knives, guard them. We are not letting the First Order take us with a fight."

"But you don't have a weapon!" one voice calls out, and he feels the darkness inside as he turns to look at them. It's a blackness in his heart, inside of everyone, fuelled by anger and grief.

"They just killed my friend," he says, and his voice sounds almost foreign to his own ears. Dangerous. "I'll get one." And it must be that voice that makes them all listen, because the few relatively stable people with blasters in their hands surround him in a nervous ring, while the rest disappear into the back of the cantina, into hiding. "When the door opens, they'll attack," he says to his small band of fighters, looking at those scared eyes and shaky hands. "You have to be ready."

The woman who broke a glass with an errant gesture steps forward, her eyes steely and her knuckles white wrapped around her blaster. "Open the door," she says sharply, and he obeys her, seeing the bravery in her expression and stance. She shoots once, and he hears the sound of the blast finding its target square and true, and the thump of a fallen body.

"Nice shot," he says, and she meets his eyes, shifting her hair out of her eyes. She vanishes outside, just for a moment, and then hands the weapon from the fallen Stormtrooper into his hand.

"Apparently we both have mysterious pasts," she says. "No cantina worker could lead people in this situation." He nods, acknowledging her offering of even that titbit of information, and takes the blaster, readying himself for the fight with a deep breath.

It's just the way he remembers, the way he wishes he could forget. The second they push out of the cantina and into the centre of the storm, it's just the sounds of blaster fire echoing in the confusion, a press of bodies, the familiarity of those masks pressing in on him and threatening to end in only terror. This is a battle for their lives, the rawest kind there is, and, at the back of his mind, he wonders why the Order are here at all. What are they looking for? It can't be him - he vanished from the raiders the day he got onto the ship bound for the Outer Rim, and he wasn't important. Are they here just to tighten their grip on the galaxy, to weave their net around even the Outer Rim and terrify all into submission?

Someone shouts suddenly, a hand emerging from the forest of fighting to point upwards, and a tiny ship swoops overhead. Stormtroopers immediately turn their eyes to the skies, and start firing at it. "It's the Resistance!" someone shouts, their voice full of hope, and Finn can only watch in horror as a blast finds its target and fire springs from the engine of the ship, and it spins out of control. There's a blur of movement, and the ship spirals into the ground in an explosion of roaring flames.

A hum fills the air - something familiar. He hears it above the blaster fire and the shouting and the tramp of feet and the thump of bodies hitting the sand. It's electric, energising the air around them, and he looks around for the source. Other people begin to fall quiet, and then there's a cut-off scream from a Stormtrooper, and someone screams, "It's the Jedi! They've returned!"

The _Jedi_? It can't be - they were gone, Han said as much. Luke Skywalker was the only Jedi who embraced the light, and he was hiding. But if they're here...that must mean that BB-8 made it to the Resistance. They got him to them and they found the map and they found Luke Skywalker. And that means, somehow, everything will be alright. They've been fighting, and they've had a powerful Jedi on their side, and it doesn't matter that he left. Of course it doesn't. He would've slowed them down, maybe the Resistance would've got him back. They were better off with him leaving. Running away.

The Jedi keeps their robe on, the hood up despite the fierce battle they just fought. The bodies of the Stormtroopers lie around them, and they turn to the fighters from the cantina, face hidden beneath the brown material. "Treat your wounded and tend to your fallen. These attacks have been happening all over the Outer Rim. The Resistance will be alerted of what happened here today."

People gape at them, this Jedi Knight, protector of the galaxy and enemy of the First Order. "You're from the Resistance? All the way out here?"

A small smile is visible beneath the hood. "I'm from the Outer Rim too. We received intelligence a few days ago that a planned attack was headed to this planet. The First Order are tightening their grip on the Outer Rim, preparing, we believe, for a far larger attack on the Resistance. Now, does this group have a leader? Anyone who could plan an opposition to such a random attack is someone my general would be interested in."

Someone points to him, and he drops the blaster in his hand, giving the Jedi a weak smile. They move towards him, that hood hiding their expression, and suddenly there's a stab of electrical noise and the tip of a lightsaber glowing at his throat, and he's falling backwards, terrified. "No, no, I'm not a Stormtrooper, I was just using their weapon. What's wrong with you?"

"You ran away." And the hood comes down to reveal a face he's only seen in his dreams and memories for three years. She looks the same as ever, with those flashing eyes and her hair tied back neatly, but she's wearing all white under her robe, and the lightsaber shrinks back into its silver holster, for the hook at her hip. "What the hell are you doing here, Finn?"

There's so much he should say. He should explain everything, all the reasons behind him leaving, the life he's had here, in the desert that reminds him every day of what he left behind. But his mind is blank, filled with only one word.

"Rey."  
  



	2. Life Doesn't Discriminate

Thank you to all those who read and commented and left kudos last chapter! The support really means a lot to someone dipping their toe into writing for this fandom, and I hope you continue to enjoy the journey! (And mega-kudos to anyone who notices the places where I was very obviously listening to Hamilton while writing)

* * *

 

When security officers charge into the alleyway, blasters clanking at their belts even though it's already too late, Rey melts into the shadows like darkness itself. Suddenly her gaze is gone from his, her accusatory eyes no longer burning into him like a wound, and he only catches a glimpse of an edge of a brown robe before he's expected to turn to the officers, looking around at the carnage with wide eyes. Clearly, officers on Tatooine are used to dealing with drunken brawls and the occasional dispute between a bounty hunter and their target - never First Order invasions.

"Take word of the deaths to the families," Finn says to the leader, who seems confused as he looks around at the fallen bodies of Stormtroopers and allies alike. "Several ships have crash-landed here today - they are to be left alone for the scavengers." Of course, this reminds him of Rey - so much of this planet does.

"You led them?" the officer asks, looking at him as if he's some particularly small, disgusting creature. "What kind of leader is a man who steals a blaster?"

"A brave one, without whom we could all have died here today," the young woman who fought so fiercely says, stepping forward and laying a hand on Finn's arm. "Leave him alone. Leave all of us alone. We've done your job for you, and you better spread the word that the First Order are attacking us."

They leave, and Finn turns to her, watching her wipe the dirt from her brow and holster her blaster with steel in her eyes. She looks up at him, and the ghost of a smile flickers across her face. "Fake name, huh? Personal conversations with a Jedi?"

"You could say my past is a little turbulent," he concedes with a shrug, and she really smiles now, grinning so brightly at him until he can't help but smile back. "You're a good shot."

"Well, my past is turbulent too. As is my present," she replies, and reaches out to firmly shake his hand. Something passes between them - something that feels like respect. "Call me Blue. Perhaps our paths will cross again, Finn. We seem to fight for the same side."

"I don't have a side," he says, the words slipping out of him before he can swallow them down, and she turns around to look at him with a withering gaze, one hand at her blaster and one eyebrow arched.

"Everyone has a side in a war," she says. "And if you were with the Order, you wouldn't fight them the way you did today. You're Resistance, even if you don't call yourself one of them." And then she walks away, leaving him standing alone in the alleyway. Alone on the planet, with Shee dead. No one to turn to in the confusion suddenly filling his head like a fog.

Shaking it off, realising the chill of the early hour, he pulls his jacket closer around himself and walks away. The morning staff can deal with the fallout of the attack. He can't even bring himself to care whether people take the money from storage. People have died here today, and that matters more than money ever could - at least to him.

"Same jacket," comes a voice as he walks towards his speeder, and he finds Rey perched in his seat, her robe hanging loose around her. He lets himself take in her appearance, how similar and yet different she is - same hair, same determined eyes, same defensive stance and wary way of speaking. And yet, aside from such obvious differences as her clothes - the traditional uniform of a Jedi, according to the history books that survived the purge of the Empire - she is so different. She almost seems more relaxed, at home in herself, and there's an enormous difference in her confidence that shines on her skin and in her eyes. "Nice speeder."

"Picked it up from a junkyard when I first came here," he says, and something mistily sad creeps across her eyes, and she slides down from the seat, the material of her robe whispering against the metal. "What are you going to do? Your ship just got shot down."

She pulls up a voluminous sleeve to show him the silver band around her wrist. "Issued by the Resistance to everyone who goes on missions outside of the base. I've already activated the tracker, a ship will be here in the morning. Until then, I'll just hide out somewhere."

"Come with me," he says, and she looks up at him, that strange blend of emotions clouding her face again - anger and sadness and shock and, perhaps, a touch of joy. "I've got a tiny hut out in the wastelands, enough for you to stay there for a night. Please, Rey - it's the least I can do."

"We're going to talk," she says, and climbs onto the back of the speeder, tucking her robe around her as if she's done this a thousand times before. "Well, come on. There might be more Order troops waiting to attack." That shocks him into action, and throughout the journey he's on edge, waiting to hear the scream of TIE fighters sweeping across the sky.

With Rey inside, his meagre home seems even smaller. She seems bigger now, to him, taking up so much more space. It's the authority she has, being a Jedi - she sweeps her robe off in a grand gesture, spreading it over the threadbare couch and sprawling out there in her loose-fitting white clothes, designed for combat. The lightsaber is set on the nearest table, but he can see the way she gravitates towards it, for protection. She almost seems like a different woman - the scavenger girl he met is gone, absorbed into the history of the first in a new generation of Jedi. "So, your last three years?" she asks. "Have you been a leader for an underground battalion of ragtag drunken misfits?"

"I work at the cantina," Finn answers, avoiding her eyes. She wants to imagine him as a hero, even though he ran away, wants to think that he's been fighting quietly, out here in the desert. "I live here and work there. Nothing else. I was leading them because they needed someone to organise them so they didn't all just die." He lets himself look at her, and she looks so disappointed, the feeling raw in her eyes, that he feels hot with shame. She believed in him, and he gave her _this_. "And you?"

"That's a long story," Rey says, deflecting, folding her arms and sitting curled over her own lap, shrunken in to hide her secrets. There's pain in her memories, he can see it on her face, and his stomach clenches at the thought of what might have happened. "I'm with the Resistance now."

They sit in stilted quiet for minutes, as he watches the shallow rise and fall of her shoulders as she breathes, sees her swallow the silence and hug herself a little tighter, worry furrowing her brow. "Han's dead."

The words work their way down into Finn's bones, filling him with cold, and when Rey looks up there are tears in her eyes, bright like ice, and he reaches for her hand, the way he did the first day they met. She hesitates, but allows him to hold her. "What happened?" he asks softly, and the silence seems to hum around them as their eyes meet.

"Starkiller Base targeted the Resistance," she begins to explain, voice barely above a whisper, the tears tracking down her cheeks. "The general sent the pilots to blow it up, but they needed ground support for the shield. I went with Han and Chewie. We turned it off. But there was a confrontation, and Han was killed." She blinks, and fat tears roll down her cheeks, gleaming silver in the light provided by candles. "Kylo Ren is Han's son, Finn. And Kylo Ren killed him." When next she meets his eyes, a ghost of a smile crosses her face and she adds, "I felt exactly the same way when I found out."

"So how does all of that come together to you being an apparently qualified Jedi now?" Finn asks, darting a glance to the lightsaber, and Rey smiles to herself, like she's sharing a personal joke.

"It started at Maz's castle, after you left," she says, appearing to unfurl a little as she talks, obviously a little more relaxed to tell him this story than to tell him of the deaths that have happened since he left (could he have saved him?) "She had Luke Skywalker's lightsaber, and it called to me. Destiny and so on. She had me take it, and I fought First Order troops with it when they arrived to find us. Han took me to the Resistance, we managed to complete the map, I found Luke and he started to train me." Her eyes shine, the confidence in her brighter than Tatooine's twin suns, and she smiles a secret smile, almost to herself, as she confesses, in a hushed voice, "He's my father."

He just gives her a pointed look, swallowing the shocked exclamation he wants to let escape, asking for explanation with his eyes, and she smiles as she crosses her legs beneath her, like a child, and looks mistily into the distance, seemingly happy. "It was a dramatic affair, he told me, between him and my mother. He wouldn't tell me who she was, but he looked so sad that I think she's dead. They fell very quickly in love and she was pregnant after a few months. Luke was training Jedi at the time, so he hid her away so she couldn't be used against him by the Order. Even Leia didn't know that there was a woman, never mind a child on the way. When Ben - Kylo Ren - turned against him and killed his trainees, so he came to find my mother and I. I was four when he split us up for our own safety, and left me on Jakku. He meant to come back when the coast was clear, and make us a family, but the Order just became too powerful. He had to run."

"And you believe him?" he asks, and he senses the anger that flares up in her almost immediately in the flashing of her eyes and tensing of her hands and flicker of her gaze towards her weapon. "I just mean that he wouldn't have abandoned you on Jakku for so long if he cared about you. Why was your father, the most powerful Jedi in the galaxy, letting you work for barely any food and have to live in machines?"

"There were always the dreams," she says, almost dreamily, and he watches her expression relax once more, sinking into nostalgia. "There's a connection between every Force-sensitive - family connections make those bonds stronger. I remember dreams when I was a child, of a young man who would tell me little things to make my days better. I heard his voice in my head when I was scavenging, telling me what to look for to get the biggest payment. And there was another voice when I started flying, helping me. And a woman, very beautiful, who came to me when I was sad or scared. I believe the three were my father and my grandparents." Even in the sadness of these stories, he can feel the way she relishes it - having connections, having a past, a _family_. "And you don't know how the rise of the Order ruined everyone who came through from the Empire. They need to be stopped, but they're so strong that there isn't a lot the Resistance can do alone. I've been all over the galaxy, trying to drum up more support for us. General Organa believes sending out the Jedi offers more hope and more possibility for support."

"So you've spent three years training to be a Jedi and working in public relations for the Resistance?" he asks, genuinely curious, and she nods - though there's a slight hesitation before she does so. There's something she's not telling him - but the fragile thread of trust between them, forced by circumstance of dramatic escape, was broken when he left; and the thought that what's she hiding might be another death is enough to make the prospect of knowing frightening. "What's it like? In the Resistance?"

"It's a community, General Organa wants it to be that way," she says, hands wrapped around her knees. She looks almost like a child, but there's too much suffering in her for her to be so young. "I mean, they've put me on the committee, which some people weren't happy about. They think it was just handed to me."

"Idiots!" Finn exclaims before he can bite it back, but she smiles, the sound of her soft laugh seeming to make the room a little brighter. "Honestly, a Jedi trainee and the daughter of a hero of the Rebellion should be on the committee."

"Daughter of one, niece of two," she corrects him with a satisfied little smirk shadowing the corners of her mouth. "General Organa is my aunt too, so people think it was handed to me. But I get my own room, and I'm part of all the planning and get to express my opinion in the meetings, and they need the opinion of a Force user in there. In general, though, the people there are all friendly and supportive, and wonderful fighters. They'll never stop until the First Order falls or we all die trying. I love being part of it - my name will be in the history books." She looks at him, her eyes probing into the depths of his heart, and he feels like all the guilt and fear that had him run comes flooding back to the surface, where she can see it. "Your name could be there too."

"I don't want to join the Resistance," he says, even though it's a lie that he feels reverberate in his bones. "All I ever wanted was to get away from the Order. I didn't ask to meet you and end up on an adventure. I...I just wanted to keep running."

"And you did," she says, her eyes piercing and her tone stern. "You left in a ship with, frankly, some very suspicious characters, and you came here and you changed your name and took an awful job and lived in this tiny hut and kept ignoring the war for three years. I wanted to come and look for you, but Leia told me that she tried to do that when Luke first disappeared, and there's no point searching for someone who doesn't want to be found. I just wanted to know you were alright. Finn, the Resistance has always been there for you if you wanted it. I've always been here for you."

"It's just not an option for me, Rey," he says, feeling the weight of his words and that strange, cold sadness in his blood. "I'm not a fighter. I just want to run. I can't stay here now the Order's invaded, but I'll find somewhere to go."

"There's nowhere to hide from the Order, Finn," she says, urgent and ardent. "We think they're reaching into the Outer Rim because they're looking for more troops for a final fight against the Resistance. We're close to an ultimatum, and no one is complicit in a war. You can't stand for nothing - if you do, what happens when you get shot down by a Stormtrooper? How will you be remembered? Please, Finn, fight with me. We started this together."

"I can't." And with those words, he stands and leaves her staring up at him, all that raw emotion in her eyes the way he's never seen her before. Always, her mask was on - she's vulnerable now, asking him to be at her side in the fight. But he can't - he's so scared, the thought of him has him cold. He doesn't want to die, he wants to go on living - but is it living, if he has no cause? If he keeps hopping around the planets to run away from the war, if he keeps changing who he is, if he keeps never letting people know who he is behind a warm smile and charming words, is he a person or simply a mask? Is he letting fear rule his head? But then - hasn't he always? He ran from the Order when he saw reality. He ran from the Resistance when he was at a crossroad. He runs scared, like some frightened tiny creature, and if he stops the war will catch up, consume him and spit him back out again. "Wake me up when your rescue arrives."

He goes to his hammock, the gentle swinging not soothing as his mind and heart roil, consumed with indecision. If he goes with her, he's choosing a side, choosing the war, choosing to be known rather than be anonymous. There's safety in being unknown - but today has illustrated that there's no protection in being unknown. The war is stretching its net further, consuming the entire galaxy - if he can't escape it, shouldn't he be on the side of the light, the side he believes in? Shouldn't he choose to be surrounded by fiercely determined fighters, safe, rather than be with those who would cower and hide like he has for three years?

When he finally finds sleep, he can't slumber unknowing and happy. His dreams twist like a fog, woven with Shee's broken body, with Rey's blazingly angry eyes, with ever-more dramatic imaginings of Han's death at his son's hands, with distant memories from his days in the Order, peppered with fear and flares of courage and chilling knowing of the inevitability of the war finding him wherever he runs. His head is still spinning when he feels a hand on his shoulder, and a voice pleading him awake, and he sits up to find Rey standing over him, a gleam of silver at her hip beneath the voluminous folds of her robe. "My ride is here," she says softly, and looks around at his tiny room. "Come with me. Please. If you really won't join our fight, we'll find somewhere for you, somewhere remote and unpopulated."

He looks around the room, the four walls and narrow hammock he's protected for three years, his only possessions, and he reaches for the shelf, taking down a piece of jewellery he found at the market, something he bought when his mind was still sharp with memories of Rey. Wrapping his hand around it, protecting it, he looks up at her and says, "Okay."

Outside, the morning is hot and dry, the air blistering the back of his throat, and the Millennium Falcon is outside, its engine humming a song into the silence, and Rey rolls her eyes as she walks to the lowering ramp. "Couldn't you have flown something more subtle in for a rescue?" she asks some unseen figure, and it bites at Finn's heart how fond she sounds. He could've had her friendship and love, but he ran from her. "Landing the Millennium Falcon on Tatooine is asking for trouble. And why are you flying my inheritance again?"

"You know I love flying her," comes a voice that rings a familiar note somewhere in Finn's memory. He knows them, whoever it is. "When I get a distress signal I'm not going to fly back to base to get a different ship. I didn't know if you were safe, I wasn't going to waste time."

"Excuses for you stealing my ship," Rey says, her eyes glinting with mirth, and the swirls of her cloak are almost elegant as she throws her arms around the pilot. "I've picked up a stray. Possible recruit. You know him - he's an old friend."

She releases her rescuer, and Finn's heart stops when he recognises the dark hair and orange uniform and set mouth that lifts with a smile. "Poe," he breathes, unable to think anything else. "I thought you were dead. Three years..."

"We tried to find you," Poe says, as they stand apart as if about to duel, staring at each other. "But Le-General Organa wouldn't let us. You didn't want to be found."

"Poe, I think you can call her Leia, you're part of the family," Rey says with a roll of her eyes, and turns onto the entry ramp, cloak billowing around her. "Let's go. We may need a stop on the way to base if Finn doesn't want to come with us."

"We have to go to Takodana," Poe says, as Finn follows them silently onto the ship, heart clenching with the memory of Han moving around the ship, authoritative and soothing in how well he knew the pattern of war. "I took Ani to visit Maz yesterday, you know how much she likes seeing him, and I was there when you sent out the signal."

"So you _left_ him with her?" Rey exclaims, and there's an anger in her voice Finn didn't expect. "Poe, we talked about this! Maz runs a bar, you can't keep leaving Ani with her! I would trust her with my life, but that place is not somewhere I want him exposed to! You _really_ should have gone back to base to swap ships and leave him with someone who _can_ look after him!"

"I'm sorry, who's Ani?" Finn asks, and both look at him like they forgot he was there at all. It hurts him, seeing how easily he blends into the background, and drives home again that he left. He could've been part of their lives if he hadn't just given in to his fear.

"Our son," Rey says, and his stomach drops.


End file.
